Imran Ahmed (strategist)

Imran Ahmed is a British political strategist, author, and activist who works for Labour candidates and currently serves as the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. A Labour member, he is a pundit in UK elections who appears frequently, writes and is quoted in opinion and news articles about politics, media, censorship, and the internet.

Career
Ahmed was born in Manchester, England and attended the upper-class Manchester Grammar School, serving as the editor of the student newspaper. He briefly attended medical school, but dropped out to work in corporate strategy for Merrill Lynch. He later studied political science at Cambridge and began a career as a political strategist for the Labour Party.

He served notable candidates, including Andy Slaughter and then-shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn. In the 2016 election cycle, he led the campaign of Angela Rayner to become Labour leader. In 2018, he founded the Center for Countering Digital Hate, with the purpose of deplatforming people and media organizations that the group believes express hate and misinformation by pressuring advertisers on social media. In April 2020, he was appointed to the United Kingdom's Steering Committee of the Pilot Task Force of the Commission for Countering Extremism.